Hego Damask
Hego Damask, better known as Darth Plagueis, was a powerful Human/Muun Hybrid Dark Lord who was instrumental in orchestrating the founding of the Galactic Empire. Palpatine, convinced that his mentor had outlived his usefulness, eventually killed the Muun in his sleep. Stripped of his physical form, Plagueis' ghost drifted across the Galaxy, eventually reaching the far-flung planet Korriban and attached himself to a holocron in one of the many temples in the Valley of the Dark Lords to await the day when he could regain a body and return to power. Biography Early Life Born on Mygeeto sometime around 55 BBY, the son of Car Damask, who had become the planet's administrator more than ten years earlier, and his Muun wife, Hego Damask was named after his grandfather. Growing up in a domed city on a perpetually frozen and sparsely populated planet under the overly attentive gaze of his mother, Hego had a very atypical childhood for a Muun. She recorded every detail of his upbringing, encouraged him to talk with her about even the most furtive of his thoughts, and provided playmates for him, observing his interactions with them and interrogating him about his feelings regarding each specific child. Before his fifth birthday, Hego discovered that he could manipulate the Force by using it to ply the feelings of his playmates. He eventually tested the limits of this power by using a very potent mind trick on a Muun child he had grown to dislike, convincing the boy to commit suicide by jumping into a courtyard from a high window. Hego's mother instructed her son to keep his powers secret, and confided in him that they shared the gift. The murder of Darth Plagueis Shortly after being elected Galactic Emperor of the Galactic Empire, Palpatine, having used his Master's connections to get him where he wanted to be, decided he had learned all he could from Plagueis. Plagueis, on the other hand, seemed to trust his apprentice completely. The night before Palpatine's first State of the Empire address, Damask attended the premiere of an experimental Mon Calamari piece at the Galaxies Opera House with Ismaren and Palpatine. After the performance, they retired to Damask's penthouse in the Kaldani Spires building to celebrate Palpatine's upcoming speech. There, Ismaren, who had begun a secret affair with Palpatine, plied Plagueis with wine while Palpatine himself rehearsed the speech he would soon deliver before the Senate. Watching as Plagueis became increasingly intoxicated, Palpatine waited patiently until his master fell asleep before unleashing torrent after torrent of Force lightning upon him, basking in the Muun's agony, as he slowly tortured his master to death. As Plagueis expired, his apprentice experienced a monumental disturbance in the Force, which he interpreted as a shift that anointed him the sole agent of the dark side. But he also experienced a sensation of sadness and loss in the Force. Palpatine initially feared that the cause of this unease was a sign that Plagueis' spirit had somehow survived earthly destruction, and would return at any moment to exact vengeance on his treacherous apprentice. Personality and traits Darth Plagueis was considered to be a mystic, despite the fact that he sought to develop an entirely rationalistic system of Force study, was among the few Dark Lords to have serious doubts about the existence of Force ghosts, even after confronting the purported ghost of Marka Ragnos, and was similarly weary of supposed prophecies. Plagueis was a devotee of the dark side, and a lover of things otherworldly and arcane. During his lifetime including much of his childhood, he was highly ruthless and sadistic, showing mercy only to his loyal followers. He was also a liar and a sociopath ever since childhood, for example, at the age five, Plagueis tested the limits of his power by convincing a Muun youngling he had grown to dislike to commit suicide by jumping into a courtyard from a high window. Although Plagueis rejected common morality and interpersonal ties as artificial restrictions fabricated by the weak to control the strong, he did develop genuine feelings for Roganda Ismaren, which resulted in a romantic relationship and also possessed a friendship with his apprentice, Dantius Palpatine. Ultimately, this would be Plagueis's undoing, however, as Ismaren helped Palpatine murder his Master in cold blood. Plagueis was wise and possessed a logical mind, and his apprentice Palpatine believed that the extent to which he turned his sight inward was the source of his power and knowledge. Plagueis was also charismatic, able to inspire many powerful and influential beings to follow him in the Order of the Canted Circle's Grand Plan. He also possessed a dry, cynical sense of humour, usually laughing at others, but also capable of laughing at himself. When he wrote his journals on the nature of the Force, he wrote them primarily in Basic, although, in a chart he drew which demonstrated a triangular relationship between the aperion, anima, and pneuma, and curiously wrote his words backwards. He believed that power was to be gained incrementally, beginning with the self and culminating with control of the entire galaxy. As his own powers grew, he became afraid of nothing but losing that power. Plagueis was pathologically afraid of death, which he regarded as a shameful and ignominious weakness. He equated death with being defeated, or being beaten. The Dark Lord was obsessed with the prospect of eternal life and would stop at nothing in his many attempts to achieve immortality. Eventually, he achieved a level of power that allowed him to kill and resurrect sentient beings, as well as regenerate damaged or aged portions of his body through direct mental contact with the organelles, and came to see himself as some sort of God. However, as a result of his arrogance and his lack of precognitive abilities, this inevitably led to his downfall as he never saw his own death coming. Powers and abilities Plagueis was a master of esoteric and unnatural aspects of the Force. With it, Plagueis could save others from death and discovered the ability to retain one's identity in the Force while becoming one with it, but this manner of surviving death did not appeal to him, as he was not concerned with the non-material world. He had some familiarity with the concept of transfer essence, but chose not to investigate it, as he desired to become immortal while retaining the use of his body of birth. Plagueis was also skilled in lightsaber combat, although he disdained using his blade in combat, regarding lightsaber duels as tedious affairs. He was able to run so fast during his duel with Venamis that an onlooker would have thought him a thunderbolt racing through the trees. Plagueis was a very capable combatant, absorbing blaster bolts and then channeling it into Force lightning, an ability that he was also very skilled in. While fighting his assassins, Plagueis was able to use Heart stun to keep 2 of his 3 hearts from failing, and conjured up a Force Wave so powerful, that he was able to atomize 6 of his assailants, and bring it around to atomize a few more. His Force bellow was as powerful as any sonic weapon and he was able to turn any object into a deadly projectile with just a clap of his hands. He may have been also capable of Convection, as he was able to melt snowflakes before they reached his person on Mygeeto. Plagueis also had the ability to see into the future. Notes and references }} Category:Males Category:Dark Lords Category:Muuns Category:Humans Category:Inhabitants of Coruscant Category:Inhabitants of Mygeeto Category:Inhabitants of Muunilinst Category:Treasure keepers Category:Order of the Canted Circle members Category:Deities Category:Force-sensitives Category:Galactic Republic bureaucrats Category:Bureaucrats of the Galactic Empire